Hi,

I am just starting my career and I have co-workers around me who have 10-15 yrs experience in the field.

I am a silent observer of things around me. I always notice that all my co-workers try to be very friendly before you and on your back. They try to interact and ask about others personal life and when the person is not present, they comment, talk crap about all the things he shared.

Now I do not like that behavior. I believe everyone has there own problems in personal life and workplace should(if possible) try not to add up to those personal problems.

So when my colleagues try to ask me about my personal life I do not talk anything, I try to ignore them because I do not want them to gossip on my personal life.Now, its creating an impression that I am introvert and do not like to hang out.

How to I tackle this situation.

Well you either talk about yourself or not But this is about what happens at all work places. So you are still being talked about most likely.
You share just what you want, and just do your job.

I agree with Fr... this is why when I work I plan on makina ALL of my friends anywhere other than work

So, what do you think your co-workers think about you, at this point?

I would just be polite/courteous, answer their questions vaguely (without sounding vague) and leave it at that. I don't think this happens much at our office (though there is starting to be staffers grouping off to separate "cliques" almost), but I just don't really like sharing information about my private life to coworkers. There are a couple of coworkers who I'm friends with and we do talk about our private lives and such, but when others ask questions like "how was your weekend?", I always just answer "good! How was yours?" Even when I do something fun like go to Disneyland or whatever, my answer is still the same.

Even questions like "so what did you do over the weekend?" can still be answered with a vague "oh, nothing... same as usual." even if you climbed Mt. Everest/ got married/ won a hot dog eating contest. Of course, they might talk about what a bore you are, but they'll probably find someone else (more interesting) to gossip about.

My viewpoint is similar to yours. I have been here for three years and some of the staff are really cool but then there are the gossip mongers. I say just enough to be courteous and not enough to spill my gutts. People in office will definitely use that kind of ammunition on you later on, they've got nothing on me and it frustrates them. You never know who you can trust so choose your words and actions carefully.

Unfortunately, one doesn't always know who is a gossip until it's too late. This happened to me in my current job. I still don't know how I'm going to repair my reputation. Sadly, I guess I've learned the hard way to trust no one - not even HR. But that's not the way I want to spend 8 hours a day, so I'm definitely looking for another position where I can start fresh. It's hard though to come in every day knowing people have told my boss things about me. I feel for you.

You can be sociable without talking about yourself or other people. Talk about what's going on in town, the latest book or movie or so on. Local sports are always a safe office topic if you aren't a blow-hard know it all about it.